Brentwood U17s 10 Braintree U17s 18

Brentwood finish third…

The outcome of this game would decide who topped the league and it seemed the boys were very much up for it. Rumour had it they’d even abstained from alcohol the night before which for some is a small miracle in itself. If they boys were up for it the coaches certainly weren’t, they were living it up in Dublin for the weekend leaving Bill, Dibbo and Rocky in charge. Sources tell me the pre-match dressing room was in fact tourettes.com.

Of the two teams Braintree started far stronger and almost immediately had a kickable penalty which was missed. They continued to press but Brentwood just about managed to hold them out whilst starting to wake up a bit themselves. The slight Brentwood revival was however short lived as having got themselves in a decent position Brentwood started to give away penalty after penalty and had Ian been there the word “stupid” would have been ringing round the field, more so when you consider that Braintree’s kicker had a boot like a missile launcher and was taking huge chunks of territory everytime.

Braintree didn’t let the gained ground go to waste and set about building a few phases before eventually carving their way through the Brentwood defence to go over for the opening try. The conversion missed, 5-0 Braintree.

Braintree had been in the ascendancy for the majority of the first part of the game but having conceded a try Brentwood responded strongly, the forwards managing to keep their hands out of the ruck for long enough to make their way upfield. The ball was turned over in the 22, something which was happening already far too frequently, however somehow Sam Fry managed to intercept the clearing kick which caught Braintree’s defence off guard. He nearly made it to the line himself but was just hauled down short. Brentwood gained a penalty from the situation, Mikey tapped and went quickly, passed to Charlie who found Carl on a short ball to clatter over the try line. Charlie added the extras, 7-5 Brentwood.

With the lead regained Brentwood should have started to settle however the penalty count continued to mount and almost immediately Braintree had another shot at goal. Which is exactly not what you’re meant to do after scoring. The attempt at the 3 pointer hit both the crossbar and the post before dropping over to give Braintree back a one point lead, 8-7.

The next period of play saw Braintree get a player sin binned for foul play, probably slightly harsh in my opinion and clearly harsh in the Brentwood player’s minds as they continued to give away absolutely idiotic penalties, allow me to clarify this now, you can’t use your hands in a ruck and you haven’t been able to since you started rucking in the under 9s. With Braintree’s kicker taking enormous chunks of territory it wasn’t long before Braintree were deep in Brentwood territory and made another try, this time scored under the posts and with 14 men. The conversion went over leaving the score at 15-7 to Braintree at half time and Brentwood’s penalty rate apparently averaging out at 1 every two minutes…

Brentwood started the second half in a far brighter manner than they had the first and almost immediately Braintree had another player binned for cynical play. This time Brentwood really needed to make the sin bin period count and started well with Charlie knocking over a penalty to narrow the lead to 15-10.

Brentwood continued to press and had seemingly managed to sort their discipline somewhat, spending a large amount of time camped in the Braintree 22. This eventually culminated in the ball being held up over the try line and so a scrum 5 to Brentwood. Which went catastrophically wrong as Braintree swarmed in defence and turned the ball over. This was probably the point in the match when the tide turned firmly in Braintree’s favour as they survived try line in tact as Brentwood yet again failed to capitalise during the sin bin period.

From then on it was one way traffic. Braintree played intelligent rugby, kicking long and chasing hard to pin Brentwood back and with Braintree’s back row getting the upper hand at contact more often than not Brentwood were getting turned over. Of course amidst this Brentwood conceded yet another penalty, the kick crucially making the score 18-10 Braintree and meaning Brentwood needed two scores to win. With time slipping away and Brentwood not looking like getting out of their own half any time soon due to Braintree’s intelligent tactics it was a hard ask. The result was cemented when towards the end of the game Dan was sin binned for not retreating ten before making the tackle from a penalty, even though rumour has it Jonny was actually the offender (I can neither confirm nor deny this).

The game finished 18-10 Braintree meaning league victory for them and third place for us. A deserved win for Braintree who were the better team on the day. However Brentwood should learn a lot from this game; a penalty and turnover count in double figures makes it extremely hard to win and a kick is only as good as it’s chase, if Pratley is the first person up to make a tackle following a kick unless he’s 10 yards offside something is drastically wrong!